Something I did on a lark is now a regular feature of the column. Then again, I used to do "And now a word from our sponsors" everyday...

How about that Chris Carpenter? I want to know if he's related to The Carpenters from the 1970s. Much was made of his drop in wins from 21 to 15, as if that actually meant that he was a bad pitcher. This means two things: regression to the mean still works and you still have to a be really good pitcher to win 15 games. This is why people should read Baseball Between the Numbers. If that baseball blog ever gets started, I'll have to contribute a few Sabermetric posts.

In other news: The Yankees are looking to pick up Gary Sheffield's $13 mil option and trade him somewhere. He'll fetch something on the open market. Also out of Gotham, it's our daily reminder that A-Rod's not going anywhere (wink, wink) Mike Timlin re-signs in Boston. And in managerial news, the Pizza Cutter's favorite manager, Bobby Valentine has been mentioned as a candidate for the Giants' job. Not only did he pull off the Groucho Marx disguise after being ejected incident, he also claims that he invented the wrap sandwhich. Multi-talented. He'd manage my team.

Carlos Delgado is apparently playing games with the Mets. He's threatening to ask for a trade (which he has a contractual right to do) so that the Mets will guarantee his option for 2009.

And finally, quietly and thankfully, the players union and MLB reached a new five year agreement. Apparently they figured out that with a few billion dollars floating around the game each year, they ought to be able to come to some sort of agreement.

October 25, 1939 -- William Saroyan's "Time of Your Life," premieres in NYC . This isn't really strange. It's just a really good play that my wife and I saw last year. The other option was the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. The problem is that the Russians don't celebrate the October Revolution until November.